Monday, 29 March 2010
Saturday, 27 March 2010
Olive May Leach - Day 3
We were a little concerned yesterday when our midwife told us Olive should be feeding at least once every 4 hours. Suddenly the lovely, placid, sleepy baby we had been enjoying enormously became an under-fed, neglected baby. We felt bad and, as all new parents would, we wanted to fix this as soon as possible. I rang the NCT breastfeeding counsellor for reassurance. She told us we needed to feed at least once every 2 hours. I wasn't reassured!
An afternoon ensued where we tried to sort out our perceived problem, the main one being that Olive doesn't like to wake up. Subtle persuation just didn't work so daddy began fairly agressive tickling, resulting in an awake but very upset baby, a quite frazzled daddy and consequently a tense mummy. We could just not fix this. You cannot make a baby feed and tho' we tried to calm down and relax it, we couldn't.
A long day and 7hours and 45 minutes passed before Olive fed at 10pm. Then again 45 minutes later. Then again 38 minutes later and again 67 minutes later. I know because we started to write it down. In the next 12 hours she fed 7 times.
Mum and daughter all well and incredibly contented again. Back to our lovely new family life. Phew!
I imagine a common problem and our first window into parenthood. An enormous basket of fairy cakes arrives with a card 'Congratulations, welcome to 18+ years of worry'. Indeed.
Now some more nice pictures above of Olive. We haven't had time to do the full photo shoot I am planning, the day just disappears, but one rare pic with her eyes open from the hospital and some good ones Lydia grabbed with her phone.
The bear is called Myrtle and was a gift from the Yorkshire Girls. Many thanks, she's v cute but Lydia and I noticed she can start to look a bit sinister. Look again, doesn't she seem to be watching you ??
Well, we laughed. Quite a lot actually.
Friday, 26 March 2010
here she is
Lydia had been having contractions for 3 days and it was hard work for her staying at home so long. Finally getting her down and into the car to head for the hospital is something I will never forget. When we arrived though we were so happy when they told us she was well on the way. Then we got our room, Lydia got her Nitrox and she was doubly elated.
Our midwife May-Yen was determined to get our baby out before her shift ended and at times it was so tough for Lydia. But May-Yen had read Lydia's Birth Plan and was going to make it happen !
After hours of labour Lydia had little energy left to push but a final go and our baby almost flew out. The change of expression on Lydia was amazing. Seconds earlier she was having 'Get angry, PUSH !' shouted at her and her face was contorted then everything changed. Her little purple daughter was handed to her, crying her eyes out and Lydia looked blissful, a different person, she was a mother !
I'm so proud of her. I'm sure not many people could have handled that. I was battle-scarred and I was largely just holding a flannel.
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